FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for the treatment of objects, preferably wafers, in an apparatus for the treatment of objects, having at least two process chambers for receiving and treating the objects and a handling apparatus for loading and unloading the process chambers. Furthermore, the invention relates to a corresponding apparatus.
Such a method is used in the course of wafer coating, for example. The customary procedure in this case is that after the program start of the treatment method, firstly all of the process chambers are charged with the wafers to be processed by the handling apparatus. The treatment of the wafers then begins simultaneously in all of the process chambers. This has the disadvantage, however, that, in particular, time is lost and throughput losses arise because the capacity of the handling apparatus is limited. This results from the fact that when a plurality of process chambers are activated simultaneously, too many movements have to be executed by the handling apparatus per time period. Furthermore, during cleaning processes that are necessary within the process chambers and have to be carried out at regular intervals, idle times arise in the method, since the cleaning processes are carried out simultaneously in all of the process chambers. The handling apparatus is not used during the cleaning processes.